Love how it sounds like crafters, jewel crafters are getting hosed once again. For that matter blacksmiths as well since gem slots are going to be limited.

Pretty sure after that exact statement they made about them changing enchants n gems, they said they would do something about keeping those professions in check...

All in all, I mostly agree with OP. People often just read the 1 line on the mmo-champ front page and jump to conclusions without knowing any of the other stuff mentioned at blizzcon, or even worse they misinterpret what that 1 line is supposed to mean.
The only real people I see here getting screwed are incredibly tight nit 10 man heroic guilds which wouldn't even want extra people in their group. Still, there's more than enough time to start getting more people in case they still want to do the hardest endgame, and the flexibility of all modes leading up to this mythic mode only makes that easier.

The MOP trailer got thumbs down because, as a trailer, it's way hella dumb. The plot focuses on a nameless orc fighting a nameless human, until a panda comes along and proves he's much better than the two combined. A blue post had to explain that Chen Stormstout is a hero level panda, like a player or Varian, and the other two are grunts. Even that only placated the people who think in terms of game levels being meaningful, a group that likely doesn't include the story guys at all.

If I made a post talking about an unpopular but true topic, such as the "hybrid tax" it would have more dislikes than likes, despite its presence improving the game overall. Meanwhile, if the expansion sucks and has a good trailer, you could point to that and get the wrong impression, or vice versa.

No Flying mounts until 6.1.
Removal of Reforging.
Gear being spec-wide.
Character models not entirely done before 6.0.
Removal of Hit/Expertise and Dodge/Parry.
Instant level 90.
Heroic (now mystic) raiding being for 20 man instead of 10/25.

No flying mounts won't make it live. Reforging should be updated and changed to a continuous slider, not be deleted- hard to call which direction they will go with it.
Spec wide gear grants hybrids a bigger advantage over pures, who they will silently give more dps or very loudly give a small piece of utility to, or both: overall that's an improvement to the game, but most players only see the upside, unlike with the other announcement. I don't see it being very controversial, is my point.
The timing isn't the dramatic part: it's how people are talking about being forced to play new characters, as their old ones are being removed. I suspect you'll see more on this as they push forward. I think there's confusion here: for instance, if the nelf female improvements strike me as alien, I would just never log in again (no joke or exaggeration). This isn't a question of how GOOD the model is: it could be great and fail that test, or mediocre and pass it. Many players don't play for things like that, but others do, and there's no way the first camp will convince the second. For this reason, character models are very very very scary.
Removal of hit/exp is a good thing and I don't see anyone complaining about it. Putting it on the list seems strawmanish. Removal of dodge/parry seems like something they should work on a bit, but as gear stats it's going to be overall good, and tanks will be cooler without it.
Instant level 90 is not really controversial much. A few people distress over the obvious possibility of selling a level 90 (the equivalent of today's level 78-81 ish), but overall I think everyone sort of likes the idea of upgrading.
Mythics being for 25 guilds only is a huge deal. I ran a 25 guild and saw it decay instantly once equal loot was handed out for more effort. I went to two 10s, as I had no choice, and had already lost several heroic raiders to little groups with no long term stability. Now on one of the smallest servers, we barely manage one heroic 10s, and for most of mop we have had massive cockblocks in the form of the 10s/25s content being flipped in difficulty relative to Cata (aka, in cata mechanics would multiply by three, here they mostly don't). The Cata loot changes ruined 25 guilds utterly, and the mop attempts to buy them back kicked us when we were down. I am looking forward to either recruiting up to 25 or joining a 25 with my team, and I think legitimizing ONLY 25 man guilds (with the mythic 20 raiding scheme) is very good for the game long term.

With that said: this change is hugely controversial and will result in many gamequits. People were angry at Blizzcon, and will keep being angry. The Cata change infuriated me, but I figured they did it to please their playerbase, most of whom believed they were being offered more freedom. In this case, it will feel like an onerous slap to likely half of 10 man raiders. I totally get why they are upset: their playstyle is being delegitimized before their eyes.

Anyway, that change will, I think, make it live: they wouldn't announce it if they didn't think it will be better for the game.

However while listing shit that isn't controversial, you left out some huge things that are:

Tertiary stats- enjoy building up an avoidance set, and enjoy fighting over people with cleave gear. Definitely point out how you have a better aoe spec, or more of your spells count for the cleave. Ensure that everyone fights over these few precious loot pieces and then gets recruited to a more progressed 50 guild because they have a full 20% avoidance set or whatever, and enjoy NEVER being anywhere CLOSE to caught up on an alt. Enjoy runspeed defining the living hell out of everything?

I believe tertiary stats will be removed or altered before live. The one about no dura? That one can stay. I would love to get a piece of "golden" loot with a perk like that, or an on-use ability on boots that teleports you to a raid. Stuff that makes you just flat out deal more damage or take less damage? Stuff that procs a free metagem slot? Fuck that!

Oh, what's that? They said "free gem slot", not "free metagem slot"? Well, they also said every gem will be hugely more powerful than before, but there will be far fewer of them. Which means, without surprise, that a free gem slot will be an amazing proc.

The enchanting and gemming changes are a big deal, and we don't see much complaining yet, even though they could sink these professions. They always scold enchanters for wanting to make money. I've made so much gold in this game, and enchanting is none of it, and I've been an enchanter since vanilla. Rare enchants rarely sell and they just eliminated their use, mats can be shuffled by anyone and have nothing to do with enchanting, etc. The big benefit this time is that I can get sha crystals in LFR instead of having everyone just randomly take my mats with rolls like in dungeons- that's about the only perk of the profession right now. Hinting that instead of run speed to boots we'll have to get procced version of runspeed to boots and use that for the whole expansion sounds awful, not having a bunch of gems sounds mediocre, etc.

Much of these issues could be resolved by getting away from their "physical item" model. For instance, lets say that I can sell you a bunch of scrolls of enchant your fucking fist. You then use these scrolls yourself, absorbing them. When you right click on hands that dropped, enchant fists mastery x3 and enchant fists haste x2 appears. You click one, using up the charge you built with the scroll. Etc. The issue here isn't the depth offered by enchanting, it's logging over or begging or AHing or just having no bagspace because you have the upgrade items with you. Fix THAT instead.

I'm a <insert class here>. <SecondaryStat1> is awesome for me, <SecondaryStat2> is meh, <SecondaryStat3> is horrible. Without reforging i have to keep wearing my i600 item because the i613 and i622 i got keep having stats 2 and/or 3.

TL;DR.. Change is scary for most people, I for one am looking forward to the changes and will withhold judgement until BETA/PTR, we can whine and QQ all day and night and post for/against threads until we are blue in the face. We can have horse meat from all these dead horses on our tacos, but we all know that if Gameplay is immersive and fun it will trump all the changes and none of us will quit.

Ideally no one has ever hit the level cap of the last expansion, looked at their dungeon blues, and thought "I win."

I like how everyone is living in a fantasy world where you can just swap specs and be good to go because your primary stat changes with you.

They've already said secondary stats aren't going to swap. Most specs in a single class have wildly divergent secondary stat priorities. Not to mention the Spirit Problem for classes with a Healer role.

It's nice, yes, but you will most definitely have to carry around more than "one set" of gear. Maybe not ENTIRE full sets, but obviously many pieces. Also anything with a gem slot or enchant will have to have multiples because those things aren't going to be converting either.

I feel like what they tried to achieve with Mists of Pandaria, was to give a brief breather to the "heroes" - and try to approach a different story line. Of course, it was not well received, mainly because of the race the expansion offered - Pandaren. They were well received by the masses, but there was a very vocal outcry who couldn't get over the fact that they were a joke race created by Samwise Didier, and implemented in Warcraft games. This mayhaps caused the players to feel like they were not taken as seriously as they thought - but then again, there was always a joke within Warcraft, be it easter eggs or emotes or quotes between NPCs.

To me, MoP was a well executed SKETCH. And now, with Warlords of Draenor, we're getting the inks of the picture, and it's only going to get better from now on. I have to admit, I detested Cataclysm so much. Everything was just messed up, the content burnt out way too fas. So fast that my ex-guild - which disbanded because they too didn't wanted to try out MoP because OH THE NOES, PANDAS -, who were casuals, decided to HC some content - and managed.

Change is scary to most. But you can't judge a change before you experience it, imho. Unless it's effecting your health, you'll never know what this change will bring you.